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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.When Ron Poropatich left the military in 2012, he wasted no time returning to his alma mater. “The day after I signed out of the Army, I signed in at Pitt,” he says.
The University of Pittsburgh hired Poropatich to direct its Center for Military Medicine Research, which pursues medical advancements for wounded service members and their families. Since then, the Center for Military Medicine Research and its investigators have been major contributors to the University’s growing research expenditures from U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) funding, which has totaled more than $500 million since the center’s launch.
Today, Poropatich is most excited about a development that could save the lives of soldiers wounded in remote, hard-to-reach locations. In a project funded by the DoD, a team of researchers from Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University designed an autonomous system to continuously resuscitate patients with severe traumatic injuries.
“You only have a short window in trauma care to really make a difference,” says Poropatich. Poropatich’s research — featured in the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research’s 2023-2024 Annual Report — is just one facet of Pitt’s burgeoning research focus in military medicine. Read on to learn how Pitt is helping keep America’s service members and veterans healthy.
Meet more impactful innovators
Browse the report website to explore stories that highlight the people behind Pitt’s research enterprise, which reached $1.2 billion in 2024.
Getting veterans the support they need
Michael Kenney, Wesley W. Posvar Chair in International Security Studies and professor of international affairs in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, is studying the phenomenon of U.S. military and active personnel being recruited by domestic American extremist groups.
Kenney sees this primarily not as a problem with extremism, but first and foremost as a problem of a lack of support for veterans.
“Leaving the military is a turning point in people’s lives, and they are not always prepared for what comes next,” he explains. “Some struggle to acclimate to civilian society. They may be dealing with mental health issues, or problems with employment or maintaining significant relationships. And mental health issues can develop decades after their service.”
Kenney sees his research as providing evidence to encourage policy change in the Department of Defense.
“We need to do a better job of giving our veterans the support they need.”
[Read more about Kenney’s work to advocate for more investment in veteran mental health.]
Preventing injuries in the Marine Corps
Preventable musculoskeletal injuries pose a significant threat to military readiness. To understand why they happen, Pitt researchers have been working with U.S. Marines during officer candidate school training.
“We looked at bone health, which is important because military personnel get a lot of stress fractures,” says Bradley Nindl professor and vice chair for research, Department of Sports Medicine and Nutrition in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “We looked at psychosocial resilience, physical performance, the quality of their movement using technologies like markerless motion capture, and biochemical measures of bone turnover and immune function.”
Ultimately, the research will help the Marines identify ways to prevent injuries.
Nindl has a personal stake in the research. A former active-duty scientist for the U.S. Army, he studied warfighter physiology under stressful and arduous conditions with a focus on endocrine biomarker and neuromuscular adaptations. He still serves in the Army Reserve as a colonel and has had continuous military service since 1991.
[Learn more about how Nindl is helping keep the Marines healthy.]
Photography by Tom Altany